2009 Fantasy Recap – Tampa Bay Buccaneers

**Disclaimer – Buccaneer fans may want to skip this piece… it ain’t pretty – like even a little.  

The Buccaneers- What happens when you hire a rookie GM and a rookie head coach with only two years of assistant coaching experience in the NFL?  3 wins… and 13 losses, that’s what!   What what?  In the butt?  Is the question that Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer must now be asking – Samwell style – for hiring 30 somethings GM Mark Dominik and head coach Raheem Norris…

The season played out exactly as I suspected.   In Raheem Morris’ first year holding the clipboard the Bucs were woeful in all areas.  The bizarre part? Two of those wins came against playoff teams.  The Bucs beat the Packers 38-28 for their first win of the season in week 9 and also beat the Super Bowl Champion Saints in week 16.  Usually week 16 wins mean nothing against teams that have clinched a playoff spot but The Saints were still starting everyone.  The Bucs looked like that had a good future with Freeman throwing 271 yards and Cadillac running for 129 yards and a touchdown.  Oh yeah, they BEAT THEM IN THE SUPER DOME.  

From a fantasy perspective, there was barely a player in sight who was helping fantasy squads to victory, unless you want to include TE Kellen Winslow’s 7^th place finish at his position.  Other than him, though, no QB, WR, or RB cracked the top 20 at their respective positions.  Ugh.

Passing Offense  

Rushing Offense  

2010 Offensive Line Analysis

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2010 Oline analysis – provided by UltimateFFstrategy.com

2010 Offensive Philosophy

Pass it On

The Bucs appear to be a team bent hard on passing the ball with proficiency.  Last year at this time, they were dropping  truckloads of dough on names like Kellen Winslow, Antonio Bryant, and Michael Clayton.  That was a joke, in case it flew over your head.  How do you spend truck loads of money on those three?   I mean come on, get real.  Michael Clayton throws great downfield blocks but runs a 7.2 40 yard dash and can’t catch.  Sweet.  Antonio Bryant has like three fibers holding his knee together, and Kellen Winslow is solid, but not worth even close to the $6 million per year contract they signed him to.   

This year, though, since running out of budget to waste on expensive and injury prone free agents, the Bucs grabbed a clue and invested a2^nd (Arrelious Benn) and 4^th round (Mike Williams) draft picks on WRs to go along with their 2^nd year QB Josh Freeman.  How it took Mark Dominik a season to figure that strategy out will escape me for many years.

Josh Freeman has a lot of potential, yet I feel it may be another 2 of these Tampa pre-season fantasy write-ups before I’m talking about how any of it has been realized.   This team is far from fantasy relevance, and that there is the understatement of this pre-season.    As a team, the Bucs rushed in 5 TDs in 2009.  Only two teams scored less than Bucs last season; the Raiders and the Rams, and both of those teams are likely to outscore the Bucs in 2010 as each had a better off-season of moves.  

Greg Olson will return for his 2^nd season as OC for this potent smelling fantasy offense.   One thing you can be sure of is that for what few plays this offense will get to call, they will predominantly be of the aerial flavor.  In 2009, they called 524 passing plays, and only 404 rushing plays.   

 I’m thinking there could even be more passing in 2010, as the Bucs are sitting on a lot of young talent that need game experience, and a 27^th ranked defense.    If that’s not enough for you,  then just take a look at the RB depth chart;  Pontiac Williams and Derrick Ward are officially the worst RBBC in the NFL with the Texans adding Ben Tate, the Lions Jahvid Best, and the Bears Chester Taylor.   Raheem Morris is absolutely out of his league in the head coaching department, this offense is going to look a bit lost.

QB

Josh Freeman - One day, I'll get to write that you should be drafting Freeman as a decent fantasy QB2, but it's not this year.  Tampa is in a heavy rebuilding mode - save for still handing the ball off to Pontiac Williams.  They have two rookies WRs that are expected to start (Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn) and then there is Michael Clayton - who is like a good blocker for a WR - sweet.

Verdict - I'm only ranking him ahead of Trent Edwards to be a wise-ass - cuz Edwards blows - but he will probably finish ahead of Freeman.  Neither should be drafted. 

RB

Cadillac Williams - There are acceptable NFL RBBC's in fantasy, and there are, of course, unacceptable ones.  Pontiac (and his buddy Derrick Ward) are the latter.   I think it's wonderful that Ponty has been able to salvage his NFL career after all of the injury he has suffered.   The patellar tendon knee injury he suffered really only shaved .2 yards off his per carry average, but let's just settle on the fact that Tampa Bay is probably the 3rd most screwed up organization in the NFL at this point, trailing only Oakland and maybe Buffalo.  

Verdict - Williams couldn't shoulder 250 carries at this point, even if the right injury were to take out Derrick Ward or Earnest Graham (who has moved to fullback).  Sorry to be such a pessimist.

Derrick Ward - He will be splitting carries with Pontiac Williams in Tampa this fall/winter.  Given Ponty's penchant for injury, Ward would assume full time duties, thus making him a marginal handcuff.

Verdict - Ward has not proven that he can't manage a full load, while Ponty definitely has proven that.

WR

Arrelious Benn - Raheem Morris coaxed GM Mark Dominik (who is barely qualified to manage a fantasy squad in my league, much less an NFL team) to burn a 39th overall draft pick on Arrelious Benn because he spent time recruiting Benn out of high school when he was with Kansas State.  Benn is still learning what an end zone looks like having found it only 7 times in his 3 year college career.  I love his size at 6'1 and 217 lbs, and the lack of TDs is more a reflection on the QB play at Illinois vs. his skills. 

Verdict – He will start the season as the WR1 on the Bucs - but that isn't expected to net him much as a fantasy baller, given that Josh Freeman is still very raw.

TE

Kellen Winslow Jr. - The Buccaneers overpaid for this guy, and don't make the same mistake during your fantasy draft.  He's got huge potential, but there is typically more hype than delivery.  He has had knee surgery pretty much ever year he's been in the league except this past off-season.  His numbers were decent last year, however, he didn't find the end-zone 1 time after week 9 (only 8 red-zone targets on the year!).  Josh Freeman still has a ways to go.  A plus for Winslow is that the Bucs could be starting two rookies at WR in 2010 (Arrelious Benn and Mike Williams) If that happens, Freeman would be wise to lean on Winslow.

Verdict - Net/net, the QB situation is too suspect for me to rank any higher.

2010 Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL Draft by Round

Click Here for the 2010 Tampa Off-season movement report – provided by ESPN.com

Click here for our 2009 Analysis on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Published July 2009